BIRNAM Wood is composed of tattered plastic bin liners and mop-headed poles. Dunsinane Castle is reduced to a concrete bunker. Banquo’s ghost lurches like a refugee from The Walking Dead.

Fine actors such as Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff are subjugated and enslaved by a grunge concept.

Bad actors – there are several here – bellow in a jumble of regional accents.

The post-apocalyptic Mad Macs scenario is overly contrived and rendered redundant by a director with little grasp of the play’s supernatural power, its interplay of ambition, guilt and sanity or its hurtling fatalism.

Bisect Dunsinane and you get “dunce” and “inane” – words that perfectly describe director Rufus Norris and his production. Heads should roll.